The Central Ranges Pipeline (CRP) is a transmission pipeline owned and operated by the APA Group through its wholly owned subsidiary Central Ranges Pipeline Pty Limited. APA purchased the CRP from Country Pipelines Pty Limited in August 2008. The CRP is approximately 295 km in length. It connects to the Central West Pipeline (CWP) at Dubbo and transports natural gas to Tamworth.
The CRP was constructed in 2006. This followed a competitive tender process (CTP) which was designed to select an organisation to construct transmission and distribution pipelines to supply gas to the Central Ranges region of NSW. The CTP also determined the reference tariffs which would apply on these pipelines. Under the Gas Code, the ACCC (for the CRP transmission pipeline) and IPART (for the CRP gas network) carried out parallel consultation processes and approved their respective tender approval requests in 2004. Subsequent to this, the successful tenderer became the service provider and was incorporated as Central Ranges Pipeline Pty Ltd. Separate access arrangements for the CRP transmission pipeline and gas network were then submitted and approved under the Gas Code by the ACCC and IPART respectively in 2005.
Central Ranges Pipeline Pty Ltd became part of the APA Group in August 2008.
Both the CRP transmission pipeline and gas network wereare covered pipelines for the duration of their CTP access arrangements. At the end of this period, on 1 July 2019, the pipelines became uncovered.
The pipelines are now non-scheme pipelines, and are subject to the access regime for non-scheme pipelines under Chapter 6A of the NGL and Part 23 of the NGR. On 9 April 2019, the AER granted a 5 year category 3 exemption under Part 23 of the NGR to the pipelines.